The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles (arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was common to many prehistoric cultures.
A bow consists of a semi-rigid but elastic arc with a high-tensile bowstring joining the ends of the two limbs of the bow. To load an arrow for shooting (nocking an arrow), the archer places an arrow across the middle of the bow with the bowstring in the arrow's nock. To shoot, the archer holds the bow at its center with one hand and pulls back (draws) the arrow and the bowstring with the other (typically the dominant hand).
An arrow usually consists of a shaft with an arrowhead attached to the front end, with fletchings and a nock at the other. Modern arrows are usually made from carbon fibre, aluminum, fiberglass, and wood shafts.
Arrowheads have been made of shaped flint, stone, metal, and other hard materials. Usually the shaft is a single piece, but often two different materials, such as wood and metal, are combined; the arrowhead-of metal, stone, bone, or shell-may be affixed by socketing, cementing, or both.
The string, too, may be made of a variety of materials, the requisite being toughness. Bowstrings have exhibited an enormous range of variation in materials. Rattan, bamboo, vegetable fibre, and animal sinew or hide have served in many parts of the world.
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Archery is the art, practice, or skill of using bows to shoot arrows. A person who shoots arrows with a bow is called a bowman or an archer.
The origins of the bow and arrow are prehistoric. Archery was developed so early in human prehistory that the concept of hunting with bows and arrows may have spread throughout the world along with the first migrations of our species.
The earliest evidence of archery was found in South Africa. Bone arrow points dating to 61,000 years ago have been found at Sibudu Cave in South Africa. In northern KwaZulu-Natal, there is a sandstone rock shelter known as Sibudu Cave where the remains of stone and bone arrowheads from the Middle Stone Age have been dated to be between 60 000 and 72 000 years old.
The earliest probable arrowheads found outside of Africa were discovered in 2020 in Fa Hien Cave, Sri Lanka. They have been dated to 48,000 years ago. After the end of the last glacial period, some 12,000 years ago, the use of the bow seems to have spread to every inhabited region except for Australasia and most of Oceania.
The bow served as a primary military weapon from ancient times through the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean world and Europe and for an even longer period in China, Japan, and on the Eurasian steppes. It was also common in ancient warfare, although certain cultures would not favor them.
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Warfare began as a competition for resources and the earliest weapons used in warfare were the instruments used for hunting and gathering those resources. Bows, spears, clubs, and axes were all used in warfare and versions of each weapon were also developed as specialised weapons of war.
While some parts of the world developed increasingly complex bows and arrows, other parts kept the weapons comparatively simple to build, almost disposable items. Areas with simpler bows and arrows included most of South America, parts of Oceania, and most of sub-Saharan Africa. In these areas, archers either relied on very long simple bows to increase arrow range and velocity or poisoned their arrows to increase their effectiveness.
Where bows were more complex, range and velocity was enhanced with more complex bow shapes as with recurve bows, and the use of more than one bow material to increase bow elasticity (composite bows). Compound bows are modern bows which make use of added parts such as gears to increase bow power.
Nonetheless, while simpler in form, bows and arrows from sub-Saharan Africa were widely present. Although firearms slowly came to make bows and arrows obsolete, they continued to be used in much of Africa throughout the twentieth century, and in a few examples, into the twenty-first century.
In the early twentieth century archers from the former Land of the Bow (modern Sudan) were recorded to have repelled cavalry while firing arrows from a tight formation. These archers were said to make use of poison created by making a mixture of monkey entrails, snake venom, ulcer pus, and even menstrual fluid.
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In modern Kenya, poisons were made from scorpion venom and extracted from the strophanthus plant with the arrowheads being wrapped in leather or slotted backwards into the arrow shaft to retain the poison’s moisture and protect the archer.
A little further south in northern Tanzania, there are still archers from a traditional hunter-gatherer people named the Hazda of which only a little over 1 000 remain. Similarly, the San people of southern Africa still use traditional bows as primary weapons.
The bow and arrow has persisted in sub-Saharan Africa for a comparatively long time partly due to a regression back to archery during the 20th century. A combination of drought, cattle disease, and forced migrations brought on by colonization led some African pastoralists to revert to hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
This meant that during the First World War (1914 - 1918) some African people found themselves with bow and arrows in hand and facing an enemy carrying a rifle. Germany was assisted in the East African Campaign by over 10 000 local people some of whom were using bows and arrows to hunt food. As they fought a war-long withdrawal, under pressure from South African forces, food became increasingly scarce and South African forward reconnaissance groups became more aggressive.
Although the locals with the German force never meant to use bows and arrows for combat, they did use them for defense when running unexpectedly into an enemy.
In Oxford, England, the Pitt Rivers Museum has in its founding collection a crossbow from Gabon in the west of Central Africa which it received in 1884.
African bow makers generally produced small bows, partly because ranges in the African jungle were usually short.
Many have observed African archers stringing their bows by stepping down on the belly of the bow (side that faces you as you shoot) while one end is on the ground, pulling the top end towards yourself and stringing it. Apparently they do this in Papua New Guinea as well.
While it is difficult to determine the exact moment archery was born - some claim the discipline dates back almost 70,000 years - the trajectory of archery’s early growth, migrating out of ancestral Africa to the rest of the world, is clear.
As mankind’s first piece of advanced technology, which has been refined and improved countless times over millennia, the bow and arrow offered practitioners an almost insurmountable advantage across a variety of disciplines.
Kenyan Tribes Wage a War With Bows and Arrows in political-tribal conflicts pretty recently. Another good place to look is, as mentioned before, West Africa. Here's a photo of 2 Congolese warriors (not sure which ethnic group). Both bear bows. As I understand it, large hosts of warriors used to be mustered by leaders, and they mostly used a combination of spear-and-shield and bows, as well as blades and throwing knives secondarily.
I have heard that in the Congo region, it is known that some will use leaves to make the fletchings out of... and that in some areas, they do not use fletchings. Fletch-less arrows are also found in Papua New Guinea and Taiwan. Fletch-less arrows are fine at closer range, and in Papua New Guinea their loooong fletch-less arrows have long heavy heads to keep the forward tilt and prevent the arrow from going nose up mid-flight.
Even in the time of the ancient Egyptians, Nubians were considered some of their best archers. Ethiopian/Nubian archers were extremely infamous for their skill in archery, and it was this martial tradition that kept all sorts of invaders out, from the Romans to the Muslims. The Ethiopian archer's were also known for being able to snipe the eyes of opponents wearing armor and helmets.
The Hadza are known for their strong longbows. They loose with the "mediterranean" release and have an interesting forward leaning shooting form. Some of their bows have up to 100 pounds of pull. Their way of life, culture, and they themselves are endangered.
The development of more complex bows and arrows was influenced by the need brought on by more intense experiences of war.
Although they were weaker, simpler bows had a few advantages. They were easier and more affordable to construct or replace, they did not have to be carefully preserved, and they were easier to transport on long arduous hunting expeditions.
How the African Hadza Tribe Tries a Compound Bow for the First Time
Here's a table summarizing the types of bows:
| Bow Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Straight Bow | A bow approximately straight in side-view profile. |
| Recurve Bow | A bow with the tips curving away from the archer. |
| Reflex Bow | A bow whose entire limbs curve away from the archer when unstrung. |
| Longbow | A self bow with limbs rounded in cross-section, about the same height as the archer so as to allow a full draw, usually over 1.5 m (5 feet) long. |
| Flatbow | The limbs are approximately rectangular in cross-section. |
| Compound Bow | A bow with mechanical amplifiers to aid with drawing the bowstring. |
Parts of an Arrow
Types of Bows
